More than 50 years after independence from the British, Kenya is a country still plagued by incessant internal conflicts, some of which are violent. This is despite many efforts by the government and different stakeholders over the years to try to manage and bring them to an end. This report, commissioned by RLS East Africa in 2017 under the Special Initiative on Migration project, looks into the different facets of these conflicts and the role that the Kenyan government (and other key actors in the country) has played so far in containing and trying to end them. It also provides some key specific recommendations and conclusions on what further steps need to be taken to ensure a more peaceful country. Read more …

For the past one year, Kenyans have gone through a divisive campaign that threatened to split the country into two. The August 2017 general elections and repeat presidential elections in October was the second after Kenya promulgated her new constitution in 2010 that presumably ushered-in a new era of institutional reforms. Unlike the 2013 general elections, the 2017 elections had many firsts. It was the first ever election in Kenya and Africa where the results of a presidential election were annulled by a court of law. It was also the first where the swearing in of a “people’s president” was made possible without bursting into violence and was followed by a handshake between the two custodians of Kenyans tumultuous politics – Uhuru and Raila, a pact that came as a surprise even to those political colleagues close to the two. Read more …

After over two decades of endless political agitation intermittently characterized by ethnic tensions and institutionalized state-sponsored violence, Kenya, in 2010, eventually promulgated a new constitution and, with it, hopes for a new governance order. At the core of it, the 2010 constitution was designed to address several underlying challenges that the country had faced over the years which were perceived as trigger points for incessant political polarization and poor governance that often manifested inform of political intolerance, rampant public sector corruption and negative ethnicity. Drawing from the 2017 elections experiences, this Article by Dr. Erick Komolo, looks into how so far the new constitution has impacted or been impacted by the practices of politics in Kenya. ‎Read more …

As humanity strives to attain freedom, especially that of expression, a perilous component in the name of hate speech is fast creeping in. In Africa, the vice has contributed to some of the darkest episodes of the continent’s history including the Rwandan genocide (1994) and Kenya’s post-election violence (2007/08), which claimed in short span approximately 800,000 and 1,200 lives respectively. In the newly independent South Sudan, the vice has been increasingly recognized as an early trigger-point for incessant ethnic and political tensions and conflicts that have been witnessed in the country since 2011. For purposes of contextual clarity, this paper focuses particularly on incidences of hate speech following the two major violence episodes in independent South Sudan in 2013 and 2016. Read more …

About us

In East Africa the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung began its activities in 2009. It opened a Regional Office in Dar es Salaam in 2012 and is tasked to cooperate with partner organizations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - East Africa supports undertakings that explore and enhance: